Archeology 303

Magritte's image is appropriate; I do think it may speak more to ''context'' providing meaning for an image/object; versus Michael's long-standing thesis that images/photos are not inherently ambiguous and need context to pin down their meaning (though there is a related school of thought in arch. which proposes this) but that the ''mechanics'' of photography - crafting a photo - mean that certain qualities of the world are brought forth while others are left behind or altered. But, Magritte's art piece does bring up the appropriate point about prioritizing text versus photo - Michael's point about images being relegated to secondary status as evidence.

Replicating Michael Shanks

Your comment runs deeper than my posting. Thank you!

I making reference to the passage below:

"A photo replicates perspective which is considered the hallmark of a realistic image. But perspective is very much a post-Renaissance convention of realism that has been questioned in modernest and post-modernest projects... A photograph may be considered realistic because it conforms to the canon laid down by discourse, rather than because it has some special and objective relation with reality... This picture is not recognized as a picture, but as what it represents itself as -- reality."

--Michael Shanks, "Photography and Archaeology"

I was also referring to Shanks' notion of "enfolding", also in the same chapter.